While the U.S.S. President Jackson was in dry dock at a naval facility in the San Francisco Bay area, "Legend and Fact" was discovered in 1970 by art historian Richard Lanier as part of his research for a Ph.D. dissertation at the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University. Through the efforts of Lanier, the mural "Legend and Fact" that had been thought lost, was brought to the attention of de Kooning scholars, and was transferred in 1971 to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, where it remains part of its collection.

Art historian and critic Ronny Cohen describes this early mural study:

With cut-off trousers and bare feet, Willem de Kooning has depicted himself in the guise of a beachcomber or sailor, a modern day Ulysses confronting the mysteries of the sea and nature. "Untitled (Self Portrait as Mariner)" with its striking resolution of the artist’s abstract and figurative tendencies, is a uniquely significant statement of de Kooning’s increasing powers of invention during the early 1940’s.”